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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23790184">A Minor Irritation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langerhan/pseuds/Langerhan'>Langerhan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous Relationships, Caretaking, Chronic Pain, Disability, Drug Use, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Permanent Injury, War in Heaven (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:15:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,064</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23790184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langerhan/pseuds/Langerhan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale's fine. Really, he is. He can ignore it most of the time. It's fine.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>IK Shenanigans</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Minor Irritation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaySparrow/gifts">MaySparrow</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Most often, it was fine. Humans bore much worse just by dint of getting old. By the time they'd had any sort of real thoughts at all they were bent over double with aches and shaking with the knowledge of their impending deaths. Aziraphale saw them at the baths: old men who needed help just to climb down into the waters. </p><p>Compared to them, it was fine. It was nothing. He could ignore it. He could make other people ignore it. It was fine. </p><p>“Bloody teeth, angel, what's that?” </p><p>Crowley slid into the steaming baths as though he'd forgotten to have joints. His glasses fogged up almost immediately, but vision had always seemed more of an optional extra for him, and he was able to swim over to Aziraphale without knocking into anyone or anything.</p><p>Aziraphale looked down to where Crowley was looking. </p><p>“It's, a, ah,” he lowered his voice, not wanting anyone to get the wrong idea, “a penis. You must remember Adam having one, no? Fairly standard issue these days.” </p><p>“Not <i>that</i>,” Crowley snapped back, although his gaze was slightly more central than it needed to be, for a demon who didn't mean <i>that</i>, “I meant your thigh. And your hip. The whole area where it looks like something took a bite out of you.” </p><p>“It was a morning star,” Aziraphale replied. It was hard to make eye contact with a demon who insisted on wearing dark glasses, but he tried. Pulled himself up (struggling only slightly, because he was fine) and angled his chin upwards. “Not a mouth.” </p><p>In Aziraphale's experience, there was no point asking questions unless you were prepared to sit with the answer, whatever that may be. A question like Crowley's was a sword being unsheathed – foolish unless you were prepared to use it. </p><p>“Does it hurt?” </p><p>There was another one, but Aziraphale wouldn't let Crowley sharpen it against him. </p><p>“It's fine.” </p><p>Hot baths helped. Cannabis took the edge off. Laudanum made the 18th century much more bearable. It wasn't always pleasant, but it was fine, and it was deserved, and it was chronic, and it wasn't fatal. (Every human pain was fatal, in the end.) </p><p>“Is it usually like that?” Crowley asked, centuries later in a bookshop that was almost as comfortable as the baths. </p><p>“Heaven? Well, the setting me on fire part was fairly unusual, but I imagine it was just the same as always apart from that.” </p><p>“Your leg,” Crowley replied quietly, with none of his usual bluster, “is that normal?” </p><p>Crowley had supported him, sometimes, when it was bad. Had offered him an arm to steady himself. Had made jokes about corrupting angelic forces when he'd introduced Aziraphale to a sailor from the East India Company who was skimming from the top of crops sent out of Bengal, and a doctor who was a little too free with his prescription pad during the Edwardian era. Had been the one to keep an eye out during their meetings when Aziraphale couldn't move, and had rearranged London's traffic laws so they could drive door to door.</p><p>“It's,” Aziraphale started, struggling to formulate the answer Crowley deserved, “worse in Heaven. I suppose it serves to remind me what a sorry excuse of an angel I am.” </p><p>He tried to smile, but Crowley's expression let him know he failed horribly. </p><p>“And the rest of the time?” </p><p>“Oh,” Aziraphale exclaimed brightly, “good days and bad days, you know how it is. Not sure why all the scar tissue came with me, but I think it makes me look rather dashing.” </p><p>“While you're naked,” Crowley said, exasperated fondness around his mouth. “Not like anyone can see it otherwise.” </p><p>“Well, quite.” </p><p>There was a pause. “Think I'm going to run you a bath. You know me, must've scuffed up your corporation while I was wearing it.” </p><p>Crowley sauntered upstairs towards Aziraphale's very unused bathroom. Aziraphale, who had never sauntered in his life, got there slightly later to find a warm bath full of Epsom salt, a very smug-looking demon, and – </p><p>“Crowley, have you turned my bathroom into a hotbox?” </p><p>Crowley, who had also turned Aziraphale's sink into a brazier and his pumice stone into a scorching basalt, grinned. “Y'know, if you had a bigger bathroom, I wouldn't have been able to.” </p><p>“I live in Soho, dear,” Aziraphale said, taking off his jacket and pulling at his bow tie. “It's a wonder I have a bath at all.” </p><p>The bath, a hip-high, claw-footed Victorian number, was as full as it could possibly get without the danger of paying a potentially shop-destroying homage to Archimedes. The heat and smoke and steam were helping already; unwinding some of the tightly coiled thing which usually found its home in Aziraphale's chest. (Crowley's grin, pleased and hopeful and self-satisfied, had nothing to do with it.) He shed a layer at a time while Crowley sat on the wooden loo seat with his knees tucked under his chin and watched until he undid the last one. </p><p>“Here,” he said, unwinding as elegantly and as quickly as was possible in a bathroom designed for a single young clerk some time in the 19th century, “I've got you.” </p><p>“Don't be silly. I'm perfectly fine getting into a bathtub by myself.” </p><p>“Oh yeah, obviously,” Crowley agreed amiably, “I'm just here to cop a feel.” </p><p>Aziraphale sighed. “Well then. If you must.” </p><p>It was easy to feel Crowley's strength pressed up against his side. He put an arm around him and Aziraphale knew that falling wouldn't mean moving at all as long as Crowley remained there. The hot water, just the right side of too hot, splashed when pulled himself over the edge of the bath, inelegant and inexpert but supported and safe. Once seated he gave a little wriggle, enjoying the cool porcelain underneath the enveloping heat. </p><p>Crowley had folded himself between the bathtub and the wall with his knees close to his chest. “You look dashing. How's the bath?”</p><p>Aziraphale opened his eyes. Still and warm felt like floating; like something from a very long time ago he only half-remembered. “Better. Thank you.” </p><p>“S'fine,” Crowley grinned, holding a wine bottle which definitely hadn't fitted anywhere in the bathroom five minutes ago. “Let's make it finer.” </p><p>Whether it was the heat, the companionship or the various chemicals affecting his corporation's pain receptors, Aziraphale couldn't find it in himself to disagree.</p>
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